


[Podfic of] Catalysis

by carboncopies



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Artifacts Made Them Do It, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, F/F, POV Second Person, Podfic, Podfic Length: 1.5-2 Hours, discussion about "hysteria", discussion of the death of a child, freetalk, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:01:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24695692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carboncopies/pseuds/carboncopies
Summary: An audio recording of the work written by winged_mammal.Author's summary: Myka keeps accidentally having sex with H.G.. She's not okay with this. (Except for the part where she totally is.)Podfic length 01:34:00
Relationships: Myka Bering/Helena "H. G." Wells
Comments: 6
Kudos: 5





	[Podfic of] Catalysis

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Catalysis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/376520) by [winged_mammal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/winged_mammal/pseuds/winged_mammal). 



> Thank you to winged_mammal for having blanket permission to record your work. This fic is one of my favorites and it's been a while, but I'm excited to finally be able to share this.

Podfic file size 71MB (mp3)

Podfic length 01:34:00

Freetalk file size 8MB (mp3)

Freetalk length 00:10:33

You can **download or stream** this podfic via the Google Drive link [here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ip_seWp9VT-vhCQ0H0jO38dODFCm1ogr/view?usp=sharing). 

You can **listen to the freetalk**[here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1APm3zSQS6GlzWnwwJAMTk4lffahIlH4y/view?usp=sharing).

Additional content:

This work is technically a repod. I recorded most of the podfic back in 2016 but never cleaned up the audio or posted it.

If you're into meta, I recorded a freetalk where I talk about the fic itself and then compare audio clips from the 2016 pod and this new version.

Freetalk transcript:

Alright so, I'm going to freetalk for a little bit. I hope this commentary doesn't come across as egotistical or anything because that's really not what I'm going for. The comments that I make here are specific to my own recordings and not a commentary on anyone else’s podficcing style or setup or anything like that. I just wanted to do something that I think is cool, and that maybe other people will think is cool, with this old audio that I have.

This is one of those podfics I feel like only a handful of people are going to listen to. It's a relatively tiny fandom and the show ended in 2014. This is 100% pure self-indulgence, and I recorded this one because I love it and I want to listen to it. And if anyone else out there enjoyed this podfic, please let me know in a comment because I love this pairing, I love this space the canon has created to play in, and I love this fic. 

"Catalysis" by winged_mammal is one of the first works I ever attempted to podfic, back in 2016, almost exactly four years ago to the day. I actually did record most of it on a pair of shitty headphones (with zero editing because I didn't have a computer at the time) and I'd listen to it frequently while I was trying to relax or fall asleep. It's just one of those stories that's always been so comforting for me to get lost in, with like the character development and the things it pulls from Warehouse 13 canon and the sex and the feelings. It was one of my go-to comfort fics for like two years and I've been wanting to re-record it now for about a year, because I want to be able to listen to it again. Because the old recording I did is... not as good. And I think I can do better now. 

Prior to recording the new version, I hadn't listened back to the old recordings for about two years (maybe?), but some of the lines are still so firmly embedded in my brain, like:

**2016** [an excerpt from the 2016 version of the podfic]: "Oh crap. I never even - Oh god, they can _never_ know about this. I am _not_ \- there is _no way_ I'm going out there with Pete anywhere _near_ that thing. Or, god, _Claudia?_ She doesn't need that."

**2020** [an excerpt from the 2020 version of the podfic]: "Oh crap. I never even - Oh god, they can _never_ know about this. I am _not_ \- there is _no way_ I'm going out there with Pete anywhere _near_ that thing. Or, god, _Claudia?_ She doesn't need that."

I can't unhear some of these lines in the style that I originally read them. And then when I was doing a practice read-through a couple weeks ago, I remembered some of the side comments I'd made during the original recording which I had not edited out so every time I relistened to it I would hear the same snarky comments about how I was reading. So that was funny.

I thought it might be cool to play some clips from the original recording that I did of this and compare them side by side to what I recorded this year. I broke this up into sections so it's not gonna be like a full ten minutes of me going off-topic. It might be though. We’ll see.

Alright, in terms of **technical aspects** :

**2016** : You had wondered why the Warehouse agents of the time had kept such meticulous records of its whereabouts instead of simply retrieving it - H.G. had said that artifacts deemed relatively harmless were often left out in the wild during the days of Warehouse 12 [...]

**2020** : You had wondered why the Warehouse agents of the time had kept such meticulous records of its whereabouts instead of simply retrieving it - H.G. had said that artifacts deemed relatively harmless were often left out in the wild during the days of Warehouse 12 [...]

Both of these versions were recorded with an android voice memo app, and they both have quality deficiencies as a result of that. I definitely did a better job of soundproofing in the old recording though. I recorded in bed under a blanket, but more because I didn't want other people to hear me as opposed to being concerned with sound quality. Also that was recorded with a cheap pair of headphones while I was reading the text on my phone screen, so you can frequently hear me fidgeting or shifting position when my arm gets tired from holding the blanket up. 

I don't have any kind of soundproofing where I am now, so the echo is very noticeable to me when these recordings are played back to back. But I've switched it to using the built-in mic when I record and I also have a phone stand that clips on to the desk so I don't have to worry about holding my phone, and then I have a computer now to edit and then read the text while I’m recording. And I think those kind of changes have helped in terms of just reducing unwanted background noise and making it a little easier to read.

**Reading style:**

**2016** : Convenient for them, you suppose, but when combined with the fact that they never bothered to replace any of the long-since burned out light bulbs, makes for a rather treacherous search for whatever artifact had made its way into a high school gymnasium in the middle of nowhere Idaho. 

**2020** : Convenient for them, you suppose, but when combined with the fact that they never bothered to replace any of the long-since burned out light bulbs, makes for a rather treacherous search for whatever artifact had made its way into a high school gymnasium in the middle of nowhere Idaho. 

I think the best way to describe how I read and how I've always read is too fast, too furious. Like, I just want the recording to be done so I can listen to the podfic. And I think now, that's something I try to be way more conscious of when I'm doing the actual recording. Because I still feel like that, I still, I get frustrated spending as much time as I do trying to get a thing recorded, and edited. Like, there are certain words I always stumble on, and I have a tendency to try to blow past things as fast as possible. And like, you can definitely hear it in anything that I've recorded, I just garble words occasionally. But listening back to this old recording, I've definitely feel like I've improved a lot. Which is really nice because when I'm recording, I have thoughts like "why is this so hard, I'm not getting any better at this" but that's not true. Because I can hear the difference here, especially when I'm giving myself the time to read a line and not running out of breath by the end. 

**Tone:**

**2016** : Undoing the buttons on her shirt proves to require too much coordination, and you stop after only managing the bottom two in favor of roaming your hands over the now exposed skin of her stomach.

**2020** : Undoing the buttons on her shirt proves to require too much coordination, and you stop after only managing the bottom two in favor of roaming your hands over the now exposed skin of her stomach.

Part of why I started podficcing was because I wanted to see if I could try to get more comfortable with my voice. I've never been happy with how my voice sounds, and in the 2016 recording, I can hear myself trying to pitch my voice lower without having a lot of control over how it ends up sounding. I've noticed that as I've done more with podficcing, it's gotten slightly easier for me to pitch my voice in a way that sounds better to me. I still don't have a ton of control, but I feel like I have more control. And I'm definitely more comfortable listening to my work lately, like the work from the last couple months, than I have been in the past. Which is nice, ‘cause that’s the whole point, I just want to be able to listen to the fic I record. 

So in conclusion, I still feel very new to podficcing. I still struggle with like character voices and inflection and pacing and certain specific words. But I think that like overall I've learned a lot, like especially in the last year when I found a good space to talk with other podficcers. When I recorded this podfic for the first time, I didn't have any concept of like.. the podfic community. Like, I didn't know that podficcers hung out or talked to each other and shared advice and feedback and stuff like that. Like, I was only recording for myself and I wasn't super concerned about the quality of the work I was making because I was the only one listening. But that's not the case anymore. And I want to, now I’m more concerned with like… I want to be proud of the stuff that I put out there. And if other people like it, that’s cool. But I also, I want to be able to relisten to something that I’ve recorded and I want to be able to say “oh, yeah I am proud of that, I did a good job, I liked how that sounds.”

Anyway I hope you enjoyed listening to this incredibly long freetalk, and I hope you're having a great day.


End file.
